Beatles News
If you’re someone who has ever kept Christmas cards from a person who was a powerful presence in your life at one time or another, you’ve perhaps noted how the sentiments they’ve expressed to you have changed over the years.
It can be quite an emotional surveying: to sit there with these collected cards in hand, shaking your head at the mutability of bonds between people. For years now, I’ve done a version of that with the Beatles’ Christmas fan club recordings—their holiday Valentine, in essence, to the people who bought their records, got their newsletter, and supported them at the most hardcore of hardcore levels.
Beatles collectors have pined for a release of these recordings, which usually comprise five or six minutes, for years now. I was trying to think what might sit atop a Beatles fan’s wish list for material in the vaults that has yet to come out, and we’re talking top five desires here. This year, a Christmas wish of sorts is sated, as Apple bestows upon us a lavish box set, dubbed The Christmas Records—on colored vinyl, no less, with original sleeves reproduced—of what had originally come out on what was called flexi discs.
Source: Colin Fleming
Fifty years after the Beatles were at their zenith, I finally made a pilgrimage this year to the places sacred to their story. The crossing on Abbey Road in London. The childhood homes in Liverpool. Penny Lane and Strawberry Field.I loved it all, but the highlight of my visit to dank, misty Liverpool was surely meeting Colin Hanton, a gentlemanly but tart 79-year-old upholsterer who, six decades ago, played drums for the Quarrymen, the pre-Beatles band that included John Lennon, Paul [...] ...
A new exhibition has opened at the Beatles Story, the Liverpool museum dedicated to the city's most famous band.
It celebrates the release in December, 1967 of the Beatles' film, Magical Mystery Tour.
The film was first aired on British television as a 52-minute-long, largely improvised, surreal comedy film featuring the Beatles.
The band's bass player, Paul McCartney, wanted to create a film based on the group and their music, in which various "ordinary" people were to travel on a coach and take a journey of spontaneous "magical" adventures.
McCartney, in a comment made in 2012, said of the film: "It turned out to be a wacky, impromptu romp that puzzled a few people at the time but as the years have gone by it now stands as a fond reminder of that period in our lives."
The film was poorly received by critics and audiences at the time, but the soundtrack, which included six new Beatles songs, was also released in December 1967, was a huge success. It was only off the top spot in the record charts by the band's own single, "Hello, Goodbye".
The soundtrack spent eight weeks at number one in the U.S. album charts and was nominated album of the year in 1968.
The United States Postal Service has unveiled a sneak peek at some of the postage stamps it will introduce next year, and among them is one paying tribute to the late John Lennon . The Lennon stamp will be the next installment of the USPS' Music Icons series of "Forever" stamps.
No release date has been announced for the commemorative stamp honoring the Beatles legend. The U.S. Postal Service has issued a number of other Beatles -themed stamps over the years, including one in 1999 that commemorated the Fab Four's 1968 animated flick Yellow Submarine .
Among the other artists who have appeared on Music Icons stamps are Elvis Presley , Jimi Hendrix , Janis Joplin , Ray Charles , Johnny Cash and jazz singer Sarah Vaughan .
Other notable people who will be honored with new stamps in 2018 include singer/actress Lena Horne , astronaut Sally Ride and children's show host Fred Rogers , a.k.a. "Mr. Rogers."
If 2017 was a year for a new Ringo Starr album, next year will be an opportunity to revisit the vaults.
The Beatles drummer has announced a January 19 release date for new vinyl version of two of his albums, 1973's Ringo and the following year's Goodnight Vienna. Both have been remastered and will be pressed on heavyweight, 180-gram vinyl. Ringo, Starr's third album -- and only platinum seller -- was a smash featuring the hits "You're Sixteen," "Photograph" and "Oh My My" as well as collaborations with all four his Beatles mates. Goodnight Vienna was certified gold and launched the singles "No No Song" and "Only You (And You Alone)." The albums will be re-issued in their original form, with no additional tracks.
Starr released his 19th studio album, "Give Me Love," this year along with his 1999 holiday album I Wanna Be Santa Claus on vinyl for the first time ever. He takes his All-Starr Band back on the road on June 5 for a European tour that begins in Paris.
Source: Erica Banas
“Wonderful Christmastime” is the worst of Christmas songs, but it makes up for it by also being the worst of all songs, the worst song ever written by a human, Beatle or otherwise, the worst melody, the worst synthesizer, the worst production, the worst Wings song, the worst pronunciation of the word “here,” the worst lyrics, the worst scent. I have never seen the cover of the 45, but I bet it f**ing sucks. "Wonderful Christmastime" is the most terrible song ever written by anyone, or anything, ever, including robots and gorillas and Puff Daddy and Courtney Love. No one likes "Wonderful Christmastime." No one. Paul McCartney hates it. All of Paul McCartney's wives hate it. Santa thinks it's a joke. God is like, " I did not bestow upon you the Breath of Life to dishonor me with this unMely dreck," and I imagine He's not real happy about "Ebony and Ivory" either.
Source: Jeff Vrabel
LOVE, three chords and the truth are all you need when in the presence of the rock greatness of Paul McCartney.
After winning hundreds of thousands of hearts and minds as his One on One tour wound around the country, he finally arrived in Sydney for his two final Australian concerts at Qudos Bank Arena.
It was impossible not to marvel that after a very long 23-year wait for the Maccalytes, that here he was, a Beatle for crying out loud.
This was the man who managed to transcend the weight of that legend to maintain a profound influence on pop culture for five decades, with Wings, his vast solo work and who most recently shared chart glory with Kanye and Rihanna and the Foo Fighters.
McCartney traversed all those chapters in a show which stretched to almost three hours with plenty to sing about love, that perennial pop song obsession.
There was his great romantic loves. My Valentine was inspired by and dedicated to his wife Nancy in the audience.
And a couple of songs later, Maybe I’m Amazed which he wrote for his late wife Linda got a false start of wrong notes and words before this rock god decided to embrace his fallibility and declare it a trainwreck.
Source: Kathy McCabe
Paul McCartney may have intended the Beatles’ “Two of Us” to celebrate his blooming romance with Linda Eastman, but those words also summarized his friendship and creative partnership with John Lennon. Though recorded during the Beatles’ turbulent Get Back sessions, “Two of Us” remains a tender ode to love and friendship, although McCartney surprisingly intended the song for someone else to record.
As McCartney told biographer Barry Miles, he and Eastman would enjoy going for country drives together, often getting lost on purpose. Once she moved permanently to London, the couple would frequently bundle McCartney’s sheepdog Martha into the car, pick up a picnic lunch, and drive out to a remote rural area. Eastman would then take photographs as McCartney strummed his guitar.
It was during one of those adventures that McCartney composed what he originally titled “On Our Way Home.” “We’d just enjoy sitting out in nature, and this song was about that: doing nothing, trying to get lost,” McCartney told Miles. “It’s a favorite of mine because it reminds me of that period, getting together with Linda, and the wonderfully free attitude we were able to have.”
Although “Two of Us” was clearly a personal song for McCartney, he initially offered it to another group. Mortimer, a New York trio being considered for Apple Records, recorded the then-titled “On Our Way Home,” intended to be their debut single in June 1969. Even though they recorded other Peter Asher-produced tracks as well, Mortimer was soon ejected from the label — a victim of the Beatles’ then-manager Allen Klein. The album remained unreleased until 2017, when the PRM Records label finally released their shelved Asher sessions.
Source: Kit O'Toole
Sir Paul McCartney relished the "competitive" nature of his relationship with John Lennon.
The iconic duo penned some of the most famous songs in history during their days with the Beatles, and Sir Paul has revealed how the late star's determination to be the best helped to improve his own songwriting.
He explained: "It was quite competitive because if I wrote something he'd try and better it and then I'd try and better that, so it's a good system.
"It means you're going up a staircase and each time you're trying to make it better, so if that works it can make the song very good ... and in our case memorable.
"That was the trick because we couldn't put it down, we couldn't put it on a recording like today, you just had to remember it. So that was a good restriction too, it meant if you forgot it, too bad.
"So, it had to have a hook and nearly always, even if you forgot it in the evening, you'd go out for a drink and say, 'what was that bloody song'. You'd wake up in the morning an go 'oh yeah, I remember!' It would just come back."
The Beatles split in 1970, but Sir Paul never considered quitting music altogether, admitting it remains his obsession.
He told Australia's ABC: "It was either that or quit. And that was the decision at the time but I realised I liked music too much and if I quit, I'd still be doing it as a hobby.
"If you're a good cook, and they suddenly say 'Ok, you've won MasterChef', it's not like you're going to stop cooking.
"It's something you love doing, same for me, it's something I love.
"I'm always surprised when a song comes because I started with nothing and suddenly get a little idea I'm chasing and go 'ah, is this good?'. If you write something decent, you feel good. It's all part of the same thing. It can be a little bit of a therapy thing to."
Paul McCartney's long-lost Christmas album Unforgettable has been posted on YouTube more than 50 years after it was created.
Simon Wells, a Beatles fan who shared the video online, said McCartney made the album as a Christmas gift in 1965 for his bandmates John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. According to the Huffington Post, only three additional copies were made in addition to McCartney's original, which he created in his home.
Per Mark Unterberger's book, The Unreleased Beatles: Music and Film, McCartney told Mark Lewisohn in 1995 how the album came about.
"I had two Brenell tape recorders set up at home, on which I made experimental recordings and tape loops, like the ones in 'Tomorrow Never Knows,'" McCartney said. "And once I put together something crazy, something left-field, just for the other Beatles, a fun thing which they could play late in the evening. It was just something for the mates, basically."
The album features McCartney playing the role of a DJ as he introduces a playlist of various songs. There is no new content on the album from The Beatles or McCartney, but it features hits from The Rolling Stones, Elvis, and Nat King Cole, who sings the title track.
While there is no word on how Wells got a copy of the album, McCartney told Lewisohn that he always believed there was a copy out there.
"Unfortunately, the quality of these discs was such that they wore out as you played them for a couple of weeks. There's probably a tape somewhere, though," McCartney said.
Source: Huff Post
